Homer student creates winning extreme sports film

Ghen Sasakura’s short video entry “What You See is What You Get” is the third-week winner in the fifth annual Teton Gravity Research Grom Contest.

“The film shows him skiing. He edited the footage to make the film,” said Sasakura’s mother, Cynthia Morelli. Sasakura is currently attending school in France as an AFS exchange student. “Many friends and family members film him and he also uses a head cam, sometimes holds it on a metal rod and films himself. “

Teton Gravity Research, a producer of ski, snowboard and surf films based in Jackson Hole, Wyo., invited groms, young participants of extreme sports, 17 years of age and younger to submit ski or snowboard edits for a chance to film with Teton Gravity during the 2014-2015 season and to have an edit of their footage shown before the company’s 2014 film tour.

Sasakura’s film was shot last winter, most of it in Alaska.

“The locations are mostly around here. We live on the hill and Ghen has grown up on skis and is quite passionate about skiing,” said Morelli, “Some of this film is shot while skiing across the bay, some in the mountains in Turnagain Pass.

Entries in the TGR competition are accepted during each week of March and April. Sasakura, 17 and currently in France, was the ski winner for week three of the competition. Saskura also has submitted a second entry, most of it by him and all of it of him skiing in France. The videos will be reviewed by June 20, with a first-place and grand-prize winner chosen.